7:00 p.m. ET FuelTV: Best of PRIDE Fighting Championship
The Brazilian Top Team The best of the greatest submission team in
Pride.

8:00 p.m. ET FuelTV: The Ultimate Fighter
Season 16 Episode 12: Semifinal Showdown Two semifinal fights
determine which two men will move on to fight in the finale for a
UFC contract.

8:30 p.m. ET The Score: The Score Fighting Series
The Score Fighting Series (SFS) features fighters from North
America and beyond with a focus on exciting match-ups and
developing the next generation of great fighters. Tune in for
non-stop action from events across the country.

Jack Encarnacao and Todd Martin took to the air following "UFC
Live" on Versus for another edition of "Beatdown After The Bell."
The two men recapped the card that saw Cheick Kongo
defeat Pat
Barry in the main event.

The most brutal part of Saturday’s UFC broadcast on Spike? Unless
your television had a TiVo filter, you were in for nearly an hour
of commercials during a three-hour timeslot. Thirty-three percent
of the time, your brain was being beaten into oatmeal and under
duress from advertisements. I got two nosebleeds just from “Blue
Mountain State” spots alone.

The filler -- that pesky actual ring footage -- was ostensibly an
ad for UK fight talent, but not everyone wanted to follow the
script: Mike Pyle had a
terrific night as the foreign interloper, stopping the momentum of
14-0 John
Hathaway and pulling off the neat trick of choking and punching
someone at the same time. (Hint: it takes all four limbs to pull
off.) Following Pyle’s embarrassing loss to Andrei
Arlovski in “Universal Soldier
4,” this is a nice return to form.

Hathaway is a burgeoning British talent, and since an undefeated
record is virtually impossible to pull off, he should probably
enjoy the depressurized environment. Intentionally or not, his
presence was one of three distinct stages in foreign-favored
talent: the middle man, Dan Hardy, got
his first stern test against Georges
St. Pierre but didn’t get obliterated until he met Carlos
Condit, who put him to sleep; the highest-level -- and
highest-paid -- platform belongs to Michael
Bisping, who did what most expected in defeating a gassed and
undisciplined Yoshihiro
Akiyama.

That the UK scene hasn’t grown to the point where we can see a
waning fighter is both good and bad: good in that no one likes to
see a favorite get beat up, bad in that the country might still be
playing catch-up when it comes to skills across the board. (Condit,
the night’s biggest American villain, isn’t known as a KO artist).
Hathaway needs more wrestling time; Hardy needs to get opponents
thinking about takedowns; Bisping needs a big win over a top-ten
middleweight to prove his actions have caught up with his
words.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a strong urge to purchase tickets
for “Saw
3-D” on a night that won’t conflict with the Spike Scream
Awards or purchasing a new flavor of Mountain Dew. Or a TiVo. Read more

The Literal Hole in the Head Award:Clay
Guida, for getting a sink installed in his skull by Kenny
Florian’s elbow. (If Kenny were a real bastard, he’d get that
thing shaved down to a point and start directing his own horror
movies in there.)

The Communal Corner Award: The Memphis
crowd, for catching on quickly that Diego
Sanchez shooting a single on B.J. Penn was
the very definition of insanity: doing the same thing, and
expecting a different result.

The Zen Master Award:Frank Mir, for
talking all kinds of philosophical smack prior to the Cheick Kongo
fight -- and backing every up every antagonizing word.

The Sports Dentists’ Fund Award:Stefan
Struve, for calmly allowing the referee to pluck a tooth chip
from his mouthguard before continuing. Read more

There’s not much enthusiasm left to beat the tired drum about
B.J.’s lack of cardio conditioning, particularly in light of
recent, long-form fights. (A TKO loss via mugging against Georges
St. Pierre being the exception.)

Doesn’t matter: if Sanchez is at all likely to overcome Penn, his
best chance remains in the championship rounds, where he can keep
Penn going backwards and wasting oxygen on resisting aggressive
takedown attempts.

This all assumes Sanchez has the cardio for the last ten minutes,
which is no guarantee: he’s never seen the back two in his career.
And while he’s often looked fresh enough at the conclusion of
three, he’s never seen three against Penn.

Per MMAJunkie, Frank Mir may
get the sharpest striking test of his career to date if he meets
Cheick
Kongo at UFC 107 on December 12 in Memphis.

Both Mir and Kongo are coming off high-profile losses, Mir to a
bullying Brock
Lesnar and Kongo to Cain
Velasquez. It will be interesting to see how Kongo reacts to
Mir’s level of grappling, which has rarely been a factor in Kongo’s
bouts -- and how Mir’s cardio conditioning will respond to a
resisting frame, since he may be required to go in for a
takedown.

Much has been said about Cheick
Kongo’s decision to accept a last-minute bout against
heavyweight upstart Cain
Velasquez at UFC 99 on June 13 in Germany.

Kongo, who was considered on the periphery for a title shot after
three consecutive nods in the Octagon, dropped Velasquez (6-0)
three times in the bout. However, the heavy-handed Frenchman lost a
unanimous decision after spending a majority of the bout on his
back pinned underneath the two-time Arizona State All-American
wrestler.

Kongo (13-5-1) took the bout on three weeks’ notice to replace an
injured Heath
Herring. Many fans are asking why.

Despite misinformed opposition from typewriting German
stormtroopers -- due to the time difference, it was actually 5 p.m.
ET on a Tuesday in 1995 -- the UFC made a successful debut in
Cologne on Saturday, offering up a card that was surprisingly
robust in the weeks leading into their kitchen-sink 100th
event.

In a bout that had reverberations through the deep 195-pound
division, Rich
Franklin managed to ace Wanderlei
Silva in a three-round decision. Though Silva appeared to
easily fatigue -- perhaps he shouldn’t have hunted, killed and
eaten that wild boar the evening before -- he was the more
aggressive of the two in the latter 10 minutes; the premise of
scorecard victimization will come up repeatedly in his the coming
weeks. Franklin, meanwhile, seemed relieved that he didn’t have to
put another paycheck in the hands of his plastic surgeon.

Cain
Velasquez has logged less than three years and only five bouts
as a professional, but he’ll enter the Octagon Saturday as a
favorite over 19-fight veteran Cheick
Kongo. Why? More tools in the shed. If he’s in trouble
standing, he can take it to the mat, where others have controlled
Kongo before.

But pressure can make men out of monsters. Kongo is a brick with
arms, his ground game is much improved since a decision loss to
Heath
Herring, and has knees exactly as damaging as you’d expect from
a 6-foot-4, 230-pound kickboxer. Whoever wins is still likely to
see a doctor.